Thread by @DempseyTwo

“The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.” - FDR
I never understood this. I find it strange that I think I am starting to get it on President’s Day. It’s time for another wee psyops 🧵👇🏻

President Roosevelt was inaugurated in 1933 and in his speech he said those famous words. The country was in the midst of the Great Depression. The stock market crashed in 1929 and things here were awful.

Listen to that speech as you read this.

He describes a country beset by high taxes, low value and little ability to pay for things. Sounds like inflation, huh? The savings of many years of many families are gone. Today, we find ourselves in a similar situation. Our Great Depression caused by death.

Covid has taken almost 1 million Americans. 1 million people lost. Gone forever. Just memories. Survivors left to deal with their Great Depression, and the fear of who might be next. We can draw other parallels. That speech FDR gave in 1933 continues to echo through time.

1933, Hitler was coming to power in Germany taking it from a democracy to a dictatorship. Today, we fear wether or not Putin will invade a sovereign European nation. A dictator looking to claim land he has no rights to. A dictator treading on democracy.

On this Presidents’ Day, we live in a country where our last president was brought to power by fear. Fear and anger and hate. The very things we fought a war against Hitler to stop. We weren’t afraid to fight for democracy then. Why are we so willing to see it end now?

In 1933, people either heard FDR’s speech on the radio, or read about it in the newspaper. They didn’t have pundits providing their opinions on an hourly basis. Any opinions were theirs alone. They were formulated from the information they received. Who they trusted.

Right wing media wasn’t poisoning the well of information as it does now. Any outlets that were rooting for the Depression, or both-sidesing Reichstag fires were not mainstream, not viral. But today, contrarianism sells.

There is an information economy. The Rush Limbaugh’s, the Alex Jones’, the breitbarts and so many others weaponized information. They cornered a market of listeners and began to give them things to gripe about. Things to fear. Not unlike what Hitler did to the German people.

They told their listeners to be afraid of Muslims, a Black president, their own government. These things are not new, but when trump came to power he normalized hatred. He normalized fear. He wanted to take America back to its greatness.

How far back? When we speak of the greatest generation, are we not talking about the generation who signed up to *defeat* fascism? trump rode in on fear. He spoke of Mexican rapists in his presidential launch speech. He and the GOP have been using fear as a weapon.

A weapon against their own people. That is frightening. They are using a Big Lie to undermine our very democracy. They are telling us to fear the integrity of our elections, to not trust ourselves. They are running a psyop against us and that is terrifying.

But I am speaking at a global level. I want to shift gears and make it a little more local. A psyop is meant to cause and create doubt. Doubt in our institutions. Doubt in things we once trusted. Doubt in ourselves. This doubt creates fear. Fear of what is real.

Our reality has been distorted. There are people who think trump is still president. No matter how much evidence to the contrary, they will not change their thinking. They will believe anything but the truth. There are people who did this to us. It was their job.

They got paid to write stories. That it was ok to believe alternative facts. That it was ok to believe that Hitler didn’t eradicate 6 million people from the planet. That Covid is nothing more than the common cold and we don’t need masks because freedom.

People who were paid to undermine our democracy, our values, our health, our progress toward equality, they are not working for our country, they are working against it. They are working to install fear in your mind so you will look to them to comfort you.

This is what dictators and those who help them ascend to power do. They plant a fear and tell you they alone can eliminate it. What are we to think when those who have done this now tell us they have seen the error of their ways? Forgive? Forget?

Like an apology that neglects the act for which one apologizes, just saying you’ve changed is not enough, it rings hollow. FDR also spoke of action in that speech. America has always loved a comeback story. To be redeemed requires action. Trust must be earned.

Once we fear each other, we’ve lost. Once the public trust has been broken, it requires repair. Right now, the GOP has broken the public trust. Every conceivable norm has been trampled, from ‘Very fine people on both sides’ to stealing 15 boxes of evidence and secrets.

Every voter suppression law, every miscarriage of Justice in a court system seemingly only punitive to those whose skin tone is north of mocha, every new open carry gun law, every oppressive law written to take away women’s rights are based in fear.

Fear of losing power. Fear of losing the perception of a ‘supremacy’. They tell you to be afraid that ‘they’ are taking away your right to free speech, yet they look to silence those telling the truth, or worse yet, use them to spread lies to their trusting audiences.

They tell you that ‘they’ are taking away religious freedom, yet they do nothing to make all places of worship safer by enacting sensible gun laws. They tell you to fear Islamist fundamentalists, with a gun in one hand and a never opened Bible in the other. Fear controls.

I now find myself afraid at times. Afraid, I am not doing enough to help my country. Afraid the psyops are working. Afraid once trusted voices are being silenced by psyops. Afraid my voice is being silenced by a psyop. That’s the point, folks. Psyops cause collateral damage.

They make you question yourself. They make you question others. They are weapons of division. They have been honed and crafted for years to undermine our democracy and they are at play and being deployed right now. To make us afraid.

The truth, while it may be unpleasant, at least is the truth. Hitler lied. trump lied. The propagandists lie. They lie to scare us. We must confront the lies with truth.

I get it now. The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.

Please make sure you’re registered to vote and vote. Elections are this year. Vote for truth.

@gal_suburban @clearing_fog @MuellerSheWrote @ZevShalev @gregolear @LincolnsBible @BaddCompani @jennycohn1 @glennkirschner2 @visionsurreal @the_peetape @AuthorKimberley @emptywheel